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Coronavirus: Boris Johnson taken into intensive care – live updates
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson taken into intensive care – live updates
(31 minutes later)
UK prime minister, who has coronavirus, has been moved into hospital intensive care
UK prime minister, who has coronavirus, has been moved into hospital intensive care
The admission of the UK prime minister to intensive care demonstrates how “indiscriminate” the virus is and how seriously the country should take the threat it poses, an expert has warned.
Prof Linda Bauld, Bruce and John Usher Chair in Public Health at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, has said:
Duncan Smith added that he has confidence in Raab and that contingencies for such a situation are well planned.
Politicians in the UK have united to wish the prime minister well:
Politicians in the UK have united to wish the prime minister well:
Iain Duncan Smith, a friend and colleague of the prime minister, has said he is “shocked with the news”. He has told the BBC:
Iain Duncan Smith, a friend and colleague of the prime minister, has said he is “shocked with the news”. He has told the BBC:
It is understood Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit just short of an hour and a half ago.
It is understood Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit just short of an hour and a half ago.
The decision was made by his medical team after his condition worsened over the course of Monday. The prime minister is understood to be conscious and to have been moved as a precaution in case he needs ventilation.
The decision was made by his medical team after his condition worsened over the course of Monday. The prime minister is understood to be conscious and to have been moved as a precaution in case he needs ventilation.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been moved to an intensive care unit after his condition worsened, Downing Street has said. A No 10 spokesman said:
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been moved to an intensive care unit after his condition worsened, Downing Street has said. A No 10 spokesman said:
Israel will go into a four-day national lockdown starting on Tuesday to try to stem the outbreak during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Israel will go into a four-day national lockdown starting on Tuesday to try to stem the outbreak during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
In a televised address, he said travel restrictions will be tightened and that Israelis will be banned from leaving their homes on Wednesday evening, when families traditionally travel to festive Passover “seder” meals.
In a televised address, he said travel restrictions will be tightened and that Israelis will be banned from leaving their homes on Wednesday evening, when families traditionally travel to festive Passover “seder” meals.
Denmark will reopen day cares and schools for children in first to fifth grade starting 15 April if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, the country’s prime minister has said.
Denmark will reopen day cares and schools for children in first to fifth grade starting 15 April if the numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths remain stable, the country’s prime minister has said.
Other restrictions will remain in place until at least 10 May and the ban on big gatherings will stay until August.
Other restrictions will remain in place until at least 10 May and the ban on big gatherings will stay until August.
In the UK, two more prisoners who tested positive have died. Each had underlying health conditions. A Prison Service spokesman has said:
In the UK, two more prisoners who tested positive have died. Each had underlying health conditions. A Prison Service spokesman has said:
Russia is resuming some international flights to repatriate its citizens, ending the suspension of all flights announced last week.
Russia is resuming some international flights to repatriate its citizens, ending the suspension of all flights announced last week.
The operational centre monitoring the outbreak said two flights carrying Russian nationals – one from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and one from Dhaka, Bangladesh – were going ahead on Monday.
The operational centre monitoring the outbreak said two flights carrying Russian nationals – one from the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and one from Dhaka, Bangladesh – were going ahead on Monday.
Russia initially exempted repatriation flights and those taking foreigners to their home countries from a ban but temporarily reversed that on Friday.
Russia initially exempted repatriation flights and those taking foreigners to their home countries from a ban but temporarily reversed that on Friday.
The wearing of medical masks by the general public could exacerbate the shortage for health workers on the front lines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
Lockdowns in many places are proving effective in dampening spread of the virus, but any lifting of restrictions requires a calibrated, step-wise approach based on data, the organisation added. The WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Gheybresus, has said:
Hospitalisations are down and the rate of increase in deaths has levelled off in New York; the country’s hardest-hit state. Its governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said:
While hospitalisations are down, the number of coronavirus cases in the state has increased by 7% over the past 24 hours to 130,689. Deaths rose by 599 to 4,758, roughly on par with the 594 increase reported a day earlier.
Cuomo also said he was extending an order to keep non-essential businesses and schools for another two weeks until 29 April and chided residents who he said did not adhered to guidelines in seeking to enjoy good weather over the weekend.
In the USA, 8,910 people have now died as a result of the pandemic, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has also reported 330,891 cases.
Over the weekend, the CDC updated its case count to 304,826 and said 7,616 people had died across the USA. But that the numbers were preliminary and had not been confirmed by individual states.
The number of people who died from coronavirus infections in French hospitals has increased by 10% in a day to a cumulative total of 6,494, the country’s health minister Olivier Véran has said.
He added that including partial data about the number of people who have died in nursing homes, the total death toll from the disease rose to 8,911 from 8,078 on Sunday, which is also a rise of 10%.
In both cases, the rate of increase has speeded up again after several days of slowing.
Here’s a summary of the latest events:
Global death toll passes 70,000. The number of known cases around the world nears 1.3 million as the global number confirmed to have died hits 70,798, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. In all, 271,013 people are confirmed to have recovered after contracting the virus.
More than 5,000 have died in UK hospitals. According to the country’s Department of Health and Social Care, 5,373 people who had tested positive for coronavirus have now died in UK hospitals. A total of 208,837 people have been tested for the virus, of which 51,608 tested positive, officials say.
US prepares for “peak death week”. The accelerating American death toll closes the gap with Italy and Spain, prompting local officials to prepare the public for a high death toll.
The pandemic is the biggest test the bloc has faced in its history, Angela Merkel says. “Everyone is just as affected as the other, and therefore, it is in everyone’s interest, and it is in Germany’s interest for Europe to emerge strong from this test.”
Wearing masks in public could soon be mandatory in Germany. The proposal is contained in a draft list of measures local officials think should allow life to return to normal. The proposals reportedly include an obligation to wear masks in public, limits on public gatherings and the rapid tracing of infection chains.
Hospitalised UK prime minister “in good spirits”. Boris Johnson, who was taken into hospital on Sunday, thanks NHS staff.
A mass antibody test is at least a month away, a scientific adviser to the UK government warns. Prof Sir John Bell, from Oxford University, who advises the government on life sciences, says the search is on for an antibody test that will prove effective, but those tested so far had failed.
Italy’s death toll accelerates again. The country had recorded the fewest deaths in any day for two weeks but Monday’s figures show the numbers accelerating again, with a further 636 new deaths; 111 more than the number registered on Sunday. That brings the toll in Italy to 16,523.
Hopes rise that Greece is “flattening the curve”. The latest figures released by health authorities in Greece offer a glimmer of hope.
The UK’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, says planning for the end of the lockdown is taking place, though it is too early to say when it could happen. And he warns: “The risk right now is if we take our focus off the strategy, which is beginning to work, we won’t get through this peak as soon as we want to.”
Here’s a summary of the day’s earlier developments.
Two hospitals each with a capacity of up to 1,000 beds are to be build in Istanbul, Turkey, to treat coronavirus patients, the country’s president has said, according to AFP.
In a televised speech, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had mobilised all its resources to fight the pandemic, which has so far claimed 649 lives in the country. Announcing the hospitals, he said:
One of the hospitals is due to be built in the area where the city’s former international airport was located on the European side, and the other one-floor hospital at Sancaktepe on the Asian side of Istanbul.
Turkey has so far suspended international flights, banned mass prayers and gatherings and shut schools. Erdogan added:
Cox’s Bazaar, the district of Bangladesh that is home to more than 3million people - including a million Rohingya refugees - has no ventilators to treat people who fall ill with Covid-19, according to Save the Children.
The NGO is calling for urgent international help to help Bangladesh meet a potential surge in demand for critical care beds as the coronavirus spreads in the region. Hospitals in Bangladesh currently have 1,169 beds in intensive care units, the Dhaka Tribune reports. However most are concentrated in urban centres.
Raising the alarm over a potential humanitarian emergency in the country, Athena Rayburn, Save the Children’s Rohingya response advocacy manager, said:
In a release, Save the Children called for a single global plan to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, underpinned by debt relief, increased financing for public health, and social care safety nets for the most vulnerable. Dr Shamim Jahan, deputy country director for Save the Children in Bangladesh, said:
Angela Merkel has said it’s too early to talk about a relaxation of lockdown measures in Germany, despite expectations she might do so, Kate Connolly reports from Berlin.
The German chancellor said any talk of lifting or relaxing the lockdown was dependent on a range of factors, and one figure about which many have been focussing intently – how many days it has taken for the current figure of confirmed infections to have doubled – is only one of them.
She said even when it was considered the right time, a relaxation of the rules would only happen gradually.
Germany now has over 101,000 confirmed infections, a figure that has doubled in the last 10 days. Fourteen days is frequently mentioned as a desirable goal. The number to have died from the virus is 1,623.
A reported 25,280 people have recovered, though as many of those who have had it will not have been tracked, this is seen to be a considerable underestimate.
Merkel said she could not name a date for an “exit”, as she referred to it. “The worst thing would be to declare a relaxation only to have to take it back, if there are more deaths,” she said. Both the government and the 16 German states, have agreed that the current lockdown rules should stay in place until 19 April at least.
She was speaking from the chancellory in Berlin, having only recently returned from a two-week quarantine after her doctor was diagnosed with the virus. Merkel has tested negative for the virus three times.
Merkel thanked Germans for their “ongoing discipline” in keeping a physical distance from each other.
Iran’s health spokesman has been forced to backtrack after he described Chinese official figures on the coronavirus outbreak as a sick joke, Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, reports. Chinese Iranian relations are normally warm partly since China is one of the major markets for Iranian oil.
Kianoosh Jahanpour made the remarks at a press conference and a tweet on Sunday adding China had given the impression that coronavirus was just influenza but with fewer deaths. His tweet led led to a reproach from the Chinese Ambassador to Iran Chang Hua. He said that the Ministry of Health of China has a press conference every day. “I suggest that you read their news very carefully in order to draw conclusions”.
Criticisms of Chinese coronavirus figures has in the past come exclusively from the West, but Jahanpour insisted he just making a comment on how China’s epidemiological assessment of Coronavirus was not shared by Iran.
After representations to the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs Jahanpour, a familiar face on Iranian TV screens , said on Monday “We should also see the glass half-full. At the very least, we all decided that we had to respect principles of diplomacy.” The Iranian foreign ministry also insisted it was grateful for China’s generosity.
The move came as the government’s anti-corona headquarters announced plans to ban the publication of print newspapers except on-line in a bid to stop the spread of the disease. Editors of seven newspapers, including editors of the reformist Etemad and Ebtekar protested the decision saying it would bankrupt them, and represent a further erosion of press freedom
Alireza Zali, the commander-in-chief of the anti-coronavirus HQ in Tehran warned: “Especially in Tehran province, we have witnessed a very serious change in the presence and movement of people in cities, and unfortunately, at a time when we are witnessing this increase in motor traffic, the numbers entering Tehran’s hospitals is still increasing.”
He said there had been a 25 % increase in hospital admissions and a 15 % increase in intensive care units as of Sunday, 5 April, and said public referrals to hospitals had increased by 28 % compared to the previous day.
The move came as Iran announced on Monday that 3,739 Iranians had lost their lives to coronavirus and a total of 60,500 had been infected. Over the previous 24 hours 136 had lost their lives and 2,274 had become infected.
There were 636 more deaths from coronavirus in Italy on Monday, 111 more than the number registered on Sunday, bringing the death toll in Italy to 16,523, Angela Giuffrida reports from Orvieto.
The number of current new infections increased by 1,941, a rise of 2% since Sunday and the lowest day-to-day rise registered since 30 March. For the third day in a row, there was a decrease in the number of intensive care beds in use.
The total number of coronavirus cases in Italy to date, including deaths and 22,837 people recovered, stood at 132,547 as of Monday, according to figures from Italy’s civil protection authority.
